KROQ fascination

[randy]

OK-whats with it. For years we East coasters here have heard how marvelous this station was and how they played the really obscure stuff--yet--whenever I look at a playlist of thiers or top 100 list-it looks no different than many of our stations over here. Lots and lots of MTV tunes and a handful or two of more obscure stuff. It looks no different than , say, WBRU , was around here, which was really a little too commercial for my liking. I would always prefer the other college stations--JMF, DOM, SMU etc, which played 80% obscure and 20% of the MTV crossover hits.

So is this KROQ fascination really more of a statement of the times? Such as--I would love to hear old KROQ as oppossed to ANY commercial station now?

[Parrothead]

Perhaps others can offer comparisons. While visiting relatives in the L.A. area, back in '83, I don't recall listening to KROQ. I found KNAC on the dial and found that station comparable, to what I was hearing on CFNY in Toronto, at the time.

[Wayne]

I've lived on both the west and east coasts and IMO threre are several reasons why "The World Famous KROQ" really is that famous:

1) Endurance. KROQ was among the first stations in the country that started playing new wave/ alternative music in the late 70's and unlike New York's WPIX and WNEW-FM, stuck with the format and took it all the way. By 1979 they were already calling themselves "Rock Of The 80's" and they took the full plunge to all-alternative in 1982.

2) DJ's. KROQ has always had great DJ's who were off the beaten path and seemed to really be into the music. Rodney Bingenheimer, Jed The Fish, Richard Blade, Freddy Snakeskin, etc. The first two are still there; compare that today to New York's K-Rock which has no DJ's and plays "Welcome To The Jungle" ad nauseum.

3) Popularity and ratings. KROQ has been a top ratings grabber for many years. Competitors that took them on have usually been low-wattage stations that barely made a dent in the ratings with their poor signals. Also, as a whole, the L.A.market has always been more open to new wave and alternative than other markets. It is a youth-oriented, more open-minded market. While Boston, New York, etc. have always had their "scenes", they also had large numbers of yahoos who didn't want to hear that "weird" music, which caused lower ratings for anything alternative. L.A.'s demo welcomed the music from the beginning, and not just the white kids; tons of Mexicans embraced the punk/ new wave/ alternative music while the majority of minorities on the east coast wouldn't be caught dead listening to it.

4) Setting the standard. Radio is infamous for stealing ideas from other stations and because KROQ has always been so popular, for years other alternative stations copied songs straight off KROQ's playlists and "borrowed" their concepts for imaging, specialty show line-ups and promotional events.

KROQ still has it's moments but has actually been on the decline (musically) since about the late 80's when Mel Karmizan bought it and suddenly money was the most important issue, not music. The early days when DJ's actually picked some of the music they played are long gone.[:(]

[rotator]

KROQ was playing New Wave/punk as a format years before most (majaor)radio stations in the US. (I would say they were the first, but there is always "Someone with a big nose who knows") 91X in San Diego followed pretty quickly....the Rodney On The Roq compilations were monumental in Souther Cal....

agreed though...KROQ, as are all commercial radio stations; important no more.

[glokstadt]

The last long drive I did into Los Angeles, I tuned into the 'ROQ... I was surprised to hear some oldies (hehe!) from around 1984, they played The Smiths and Siouxsie & The Banshees, nothing earth-shattering, but then all that new noise they are playing, plus a couple of grunge tunes, they also spun the new Foo Fighters single, which I liked... overall, just another commercial money-making machine on the airwaves...

Back in the day, when the DJs had full rein, before a plylist was made, one would hear obscure tracks, as well as the non-single cuts from the "new wave" and "punk" albums.

Randy, remember that KROQ's Top 106.7 tunes was made up from listeners voting, and the majority voted for those songs. That's why when you look at the playlists of their Top 106.7 year-end songs, it looks no different than many of ther stations on the east coast.

[b]<font color = pink>KNAC[/b]<font color = normal>, OTOH, had a better playlist, took real listener requests, and did twin spins of artists' songs back-to-back (no one did that, unless they were doing the block party on 91X, et al). I also had a few friends that DJ-ed there, and they had more free rein of what they played, then KROQ ended playing whatever they wanted, when they had a formal playlist instilled/forced and started spinning the "Top 40" of New Wave every other hour...



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[djcraig]

Back in the day it was the perfect storm of groundbreaking music and a station willing to play it that made KROQ noteworthy.

I can't listen now as the irreverent spirit has been replaced with disposable emo, grunge and metal rap. The pleasant musical surprises that used to pepper their playlist are rare if not completely extinct.

KNAC was a great station as well.

In So Cal now, 103.1 Indie plays the best mix and has taken over the reigns of cutting edge alternative while still paying homage the classic New Wave and Punk.

http://indie1031.fm/listenlive.html


Here is what KROQ used to sound like:

http://www.kroqclassics.com/

<a href="http://www.djcraig.net/los_angeles_dj">DJ Craig</a>

[Frau_Blucher]

[quote][i]Originally posted by glokstadt[/i]
<br>Randy, remember that KROQ's Top 106.7 tunes was made up from listeners voting, and the majority voted for those songs. That's why when you look at the playlists of their Top 106.7 year-end songs, it looks no different than many of ther stations on the east coast.
[/quote]
This can't be repeated enough. There's a ton missing off those vanilla lists, even some of the more common songs from earlier in the years. It might be somewhat representative of what got played in the morning and afternoon drive hours (even KROQ was pretty vanilla then), but man would some of the DJs get creative at other hours. A perfect storm is right. Wayne couldn't have put it any better.

As a side note, me and many others have put together lists of so-called "forgotten" KROQ tracks - the real signature songs that locals will get that wistful look over and wax poetic about. I can show that list or make a mix for a local from back in the day, and to a T, each of those fans will say "Yeah, that NAILS it!" I can't really explain what that IT really is, but we all seem to know it when we hear it and it's not really made up of the countdown tracks.

[glokstadt]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Blir[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by glokstadt[/i]
<br>Randy, remember that KROQ's Top 106.7 tunes was made up from listeners voting, and the majority voted for those songs. That's why when you look at the playlists of their Top 106.7 year-end songs, it looks no different than many of ther stations on the east coast.
[/quote]
This can't be repeated enough. There's a ton missing off those vanilla lists, even some of the more common songs from earlier in the years. I might be somewhat representative of what got played in the morning and afternoon drive-time hours (even KROQ was pretty vanilla then), but man oh man would some of the DJs get creative at other hours. A perfect storm is right. Wayne couldn't have put it any better.

As a side note, me and many others have put together lists of so-called "forgotten" KROQ tracks - the real signature songs that locals will get that wistful look over and wax poetic about. I can show that list or make a mix for a local from back in the day, and to a T, each of those fans will say "Yeah, that NAILS it!" I can't really explain what that IT really is, but we all seem to know it when we hear it and it's not really made up of the countdown tracks.
[/quote]

Right Blir, bands like The Suburbs, 3-D, Unit 3 with Venus, LAX, Brian Briggs, D-Day, Scott Goddard, Pat Wilson, The Normal, Human Sexual response, The Bus Boys, The Humans, Inflatable Boy Clams, Sexbeat, Slow Children, Caution, etc., etc.

Then Rodney Bingenheimer would play whatever the fuck he wanted to, including tons of unreleased demo tapes from bands that never got signed!

[:D][8D]



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[DrewTheEngineer]

A lot of it was attitude. The place was a tiny dump, people sometimes didn't get paid, the transmitter was falling off the air and the license was in contention, see pix at http://www.memorypain.com/pictures.htm
So the people there had to care about the music at least to some degree and that came across to the listenership. It was a "We're not like the fake jerks on the other stations, we kinda suck but we try hard." Compare that with the slick studios and smug hipness that other stations tried to pull off, but only comes across as smarmy.

It was also a non-recurring phenomenon: They were doing the right thing at the right time. I think it peaked in the mid 80's and then there was a lull until grunge came along, and at that point the success was too much to not keep pursuing. Resistance to change that might affect their ratings has meant that they haven't changed essentially in the past 10 years.

Consider that this is also in the face of challenges from online music availability and internet communities like this one. It's very hard to program a station simultaneously for broad appeal and niche interest when today you can get 100's of online stations catering to every flavor of music, nevermind the fact that online you can find any information about any band and music movement anywhere in the world practically. It used to be that there were only certain places you could find it, say a particular station like KROQ or a magazine that had the stuff you were interested in.

I think the days of innovative broadcast radio are long over, because of corporate ownership of stations and competition from the internet. Unfortunately, i only see contemporary radio as the crap you have to put up with when you're away from your ipod, or computer or satellite radio, like in the dentists office, or elevators. Kind of like Muzak.

--
Borrowed Nostalgia for the Unremembered 80's

[club80]

I was never exposed to KROQ as a Long Islander. We had WLIR, another "world famous" station who so many artists cite as being influential in giving exposure to their music. It was true and it was unique here but it wasn't the first here.
WPIX had a brief stint as a Punk/New Wave station back in 1978. College radio was also huge. WVHC (Hofstra) was playing obscure and not so obscure Punk and New Wave acts regularly through their nightly Post Punk Progressive Pop Party which ran 7 nights a week from 11pm to 2am as far back as 1978. They had other programs highlighting New Wave and Punk as well.
I guess my point here is that there were many trendsetting stations that provided access to our music. Stations like KROQ and WLIR may not have been perfect, the first or the best but they were ahead of their time. They are probably the most famous because they were accessible to the two hungriest markets for this music, Los Angeles and New York.
I don't think it's that important to crown a winner here. What's most important is that we all had stations that could satisfy our thirst for the music when it was difficult to find it elsewhere.

[Rat_Scabies]

KROQ, like many things that originate in SoCal, is more hype than substance. They were true pioneers in their early years (pre '81). 91x took the torch and ran from away from them in the early '80s.

[q89747]

[quote]Originally posted by randy
[br]OK-whats with it. For years we East coasters here have heard how marvelous this station was and how they played the really obscure stuff--yet--whenever I look at a playlist of thiers or top 100 list-it looks no different than many of our stations over here. Lots and lots of MTV tunes and a handful or two of more obscure stuff. It looks no different than , say, WBRU , was around here, which was really a little too commercial for my liking. I would always prefer the other college stations--JMF, DOM, SMU etc, which played 80% obscure and 20% of the MTV crossover hits.

So is this KROQ fascination really more of a statement of the times? Such as--I would love to hear old KROQ as oppossed to ANY commercial station now?
[/quote]

[q89747]

[quote]Originally posted by randy
[br]OK-whats with it. For years we East coasters here have heard how marvelous this station was and how they played the really obscure stuff--yet--whenever I look at a playlist of thiers or top 100 list-it looks no different than many of our stations over here. Lots and lots of MTV tunes and a handful or two of more obscure stuff. It looks no different than , say, WBRU , was around here, which was really a little too commercial for my liking. I would always prefer the other college stations--JMF, DOM, SMU etc, which played 80% obscure and 20% of the MTV crossover hits.

So is this KROQ fascination really more of a statement of the times? Such as--I would love to hear old KROQ as oppossed to ANY commercial station now?
[/quote]
I can think of another reason, though probably not as high on the importance scale as the other things listed in this forum... several of the KROQ DJs went on to be influential elsewhere: Kennedy (ugh) and Lewis Largent went on to MTV... ditto Loveline... Mark Goodman went to WKQX when that station (remodeling itself after KROQ, according to Wikipedia) went 'alternative'... can't think of any more other than the loathsome individuals like Jimmy Kimmel, Carson Daly etc, who went on to big TV careers (these don't really count for the purpose of this discussion of course)...

[Sean]

The top 100 lists that are often posted and seen really do not give an accurate picture of what KROQ played in the 80's. I don't know about the people in East Coast but in West Coast, KROQ was a big part of our lives. It was a small station that took on the big guys. It was a station that said we were going to play New Wave because we want to. If you scanned the channels of the radio at the time (excluding the KNAC, KSPC, and 91X that never really came through clearly), KROQ was up against all the other stations. We had the rockers and heavy metalers of KMET and KLOS. We also had adult contemporary/oldies channels such as KBIG, KOST, and KRTH. Basically, for us New Wave kids growing up, KROQ, was our representation. How cool was it to just turn on the radio and here Soft Cell "It's A Mug's Game", Depeche Mode "Set Me Free Remotivate Me" or Sparks "Angst In My Pants" when everyone else was saying, what in the world is that. There would even be much more obscure stuff that got played that never made it on any list and I wish that there was a list that showed all of these songs. At a time when the internet wasn't in everyone's homes, KROQ seemed to be able to pull UK and rest of the world to our doorsteps. They had some kind of connection, maybe it was Richard Blade's English accent or something, but it just worked. This is where I would learn about new New Wave bands and was able to build my collection. Anyways, I am sure there were other stations around the country that were playing very cool music too that had the same effect too. I just wanted to give my perspective of how KROQ was a great station in the 80's for me. (This is of course before they sold out)

[glokstadt]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Rat_Scabies[/i]
<br>KROQ, like many things that originate in SoCal, is more hype than substance. They were true pioneers in their early years (pre '81). 91x took the torch and ran from away from them in the early '80s.
[/quote]

Because Rick Carrol the creator of the KROQ "sound" moved over to 91X...[:)]



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